A look into the lives of those in the HIV and AIDS community

A new research project will investigate how living rooms are self-curated by those affected by HIV and AIDS.

An interdisciplinary investigation into the lives of those in the HIV and AIDS community, We Are Still Here will use research and photography to document how living spaces are self-curated by those in the community.

The project, part of a partnership between the University of Bristol’s Brigstow Institute and the inaugural Bristol Photo Festival, will focus on how living spaces are curated to better mental wellbeing of those in the community.

The team behind We Are Still Here bring skills from a range of study, but all have a focus on HIV and AIDS.

Dr Adrian Flint, a senior lecturer in development politics at the University of Bristol, has written on the politics of HIV and AIDS for more than ten years, with an emphasis on structural violence and decolonising the narratives surrounding disease.

Mareike Günsche, a photographer, and senior lecturer at University of Arts in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, uses participatory photography as a tool for empowerment, focus on human rights, gender equality, and social change

Martin Burns is a writer, HIV and AIDS activist and equality advocate whose work looks specifically at the stigma and othering around the diseases.

Martin Burns has written and spoken extensively on the subject of HIV/AIDS. Photo: Martin Burns

“Our respective interests in the HIV community and the challenges they face come from differing approaches, respectively: the photographic and educational, the sociological and political, and the personal activist’s,” says Martin. “Each has a basis in the belief of human rights for all.

“The research into on how vital and important our living spaces are at these times couldn’t be more appropriate due to the last 12 months”

As highlighted by Brigstowe, Bristol’s HIV and AIDS charity, following the release of It’s A Sin, “in 2021 we (LGBTQ+ people) may not be physically dying in the numbers we once were, but the stigma is still very much here”, and that is one of the issues We Are Still Here hopes to challenge.

“Over the past decade or so, the HIV/AIDS community has fallen out of view from the public eye and it’s our intention to raise awareness of the truth of the condition, that society’s image of it is outdated,” says Martin.

“What is still rife is the prejudice against it, which is highly damaging to the individual.

“In the midst of one pandemic, we hope lessons from the HIV/AIDS crisis can be applied to better understand the world we live in now.”

We Are Still Here will offer a forum where all members of society can re-engage with an outcast social group. To be a part of that wider world again, the HIV community must invite it into their own.

The project will place those affected by HIV and AIDS in the limelight, at a time when there has been a steady decline of visibility for the community.

Dr Adrian Flint is a senior lecturer in development politics at the University of Bristol. Photo: Adrian Flint/Martin Burns

Using photography, Mareike will work with those in the community to explore themes and feelings that are brought up by the diseases, with the research team saying: “Photography can immortalise and offer remembrance, but this medium is also a poignant and reassuring tool for survivors.

“Not to be forgotten are the families of both, and the difficulties that come with understanding a disease that is also experienced second-hand. The family portrait will be examined as an institution of both exclusion and inclusion.

“If there is no image, there is no identity.”

An exhibition will be hosted by the Bristol Photo Festival later in 2021 to not only raise the profile of HIV and AIDS at a time when the community is becoming less visible and stigma still remains.

Mareike Günsche will lead the photography side of the project. Photo: Mareike Günsche/Martin Burns

We Are Still Here will not only raise awareness of a largely unseen community but change the narrative that HIV and AIDS are something to be feared in 2021.

“What is clear from our research is that despite all the advances in treatment over the past 40 years, social attitudes to HIV/AIDS often appear to remain mired in the 1980s, with the image of the public service “Don’t die of ignorance” tombstone still looming large,” says Martin.

“By normalising the condition, HIV could become a thing of a past should it be caught in people early,” says Martin.

“Most importantly, we want the HIV/AIDS community to be both visible and accepted, as opposed to its current status wherein people are increasingly invisible and still stigmatised.”

Main photo: Brigstowe

Read more: ‘It’s A Sin is a reminder of the LGBTQ+ community and it’s importance, especially in times of hardship’